PZ Myers has a notice up for Australian blog readers.
Essentially, an Australian graduate student is looking for people who read blogs, but don’t have blogs of their own, for a research project. She needs adult Australian blog readers.
Check Pharyngula for the details and contact information.
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19 comments
oh, well, there’s only a coupla australian blogs that i read anyway. but given the somewhat curious constraints on the the test subjects, i wish i knew what the objective was.
Maybe Kryten will investigate and tell us. I have about 4 regular visitors from Australia who don’t comment but drop by regularly, not counting Kryten who isn’t identified with Australia by Feedjit, so I thought I’d make them aware of it.
Grad students need all the help they can get.
Ahhh! I felt my ears burning! (I though it was the sun I was enjoying since we haven’t seen it for 2 weeks!! But the rain is sooooo good! We really needed it! But it can stop now… for a week or so anyway… please?)
OK… I’ll see what I can find out? Glad to be of service anytime. 😉
And yes, always happy to help a grad student and have done so often. 🙂
Cheers!
Oh… yeah… Blame my anon Proxy. 😉 LOL It’s a very good Chinese proxy BTW. They are probably the best right now, given their Gov trying to stop Chinese people from learning anything other than Agitprop! 😉 LOL
Ermmm… what I meant was, the client software is Chinese (finally with an English translation!) using a proxy chain they have setup globally that actually edits the headers so that the Chinese can view foreign websites without being arrested or shot. And works just as well for those outside China. 😉
I’ve been trying to hack it on and off for a couple months with no success (and I have hacked the TOR (onion-ring) proxy network.
Just FYI. 😉
I’ve been getting a lot of hits lately from the Mainland and HK. I normally got a regular hit from Beijing, which I assumed was an ex-pat, but lately they have been coming from a half dozen different locations.
I knew the proxy shielded your locale, but I get regular hits for at least four locations in Australia directly to the blog, rather than from a search engine.
eMail sent. I’ll let you know if/when I get a reply. 🙂
Thanks, Kryten. Hopefully it helps someone with their future, although I’m not sure what the social significance of blogs is at this point.
Well… just so you know, if she wants to know about a current blogger I know, you’re it! LOL Otherwise, it will be my friend tas who ran ‘Loaded Mouth’ where I blogged for 2 years, unless that doesn’t count because I was a blogger there. In which case, it gets interesting. 🙂 There were several bloggers I respected between ’04 & ’07 before I packed it all in. 🙂 And so many lefty (supposedly ‘reality based’) bloggers have gone right off the deep end, which narrows things down a bit.
Your’s is about the only blog I annoy regularly these days. Lucky you huh? 😉
LOL
BTW, if you are interested, the proxy client I’m testing now is called UltraSurf. The homepage is Chinese (Duh!) But they have an English site also, but it’s a little out of date compared to the Chinese one. The EN manual is for v6, the current s/w version is 8.9! 🙂
However… it’s dead simple to use, so that’s no problem. The EN site does give a lot of info on it and why etc. 🙂
UltraReach Internet
Heres the main Chinese page:
UltraSurf Download (Chinese)
Cheers. 🙂
As it is highly unlikely we would run into each other in a Publix supermarket, I assumed I would be in the target area of the research. Shred away, in the advancement of some poor student’s quest to actually make a living.
Hi all. 🙂
I received an eMail finally with all the documents attached. I have to fill out a questionnaire about my relationship to a particular blog and blogger. There are some constraints (of course). 😉
The thesis title is: “An Exploration of the Relationship Between Bloggers and Their Readers from the Readers’ Perspective”. It appears to be an investigation into a side of ‘weblog culture’ that I haven’t come across before. That appeals to me, so makes my participation of interest to me. 🙂
She says: “I am specifically looking for readers who are not bloggers themselves and are unknown to the blogger offline. Therefore, the purpose of this survey is to gain insight into this relationship from your perspective.”
So, there you go hipparchia & Bryan! 😉 😀
Some of the questions are interesting. I’ll actually have to think about some of them. 🙂
And, given the constrants, including that it has to ba a blog I currently visit and a blooger I know online, you are it Bryan. 😀
I’ll try not to give away all your secrets! LOL I might not mention the cats… 😉
Cheers! Should be fun. 🙂
I have secrets? Who knew.
Have fun, and don’t play with her mind. [I know, old habits are hard to break.]
cool! is she planning to publish her results where the rest of us can read them?
LOL @ Bryan. 😉 Don’t worry m8! I don’t mess with people like students trying to do something serious, or people I like. 🙂 I like to have fun of course, but try to make sure the person I’m having fun with knows it! 🙂 She is serious about her thesis, so I will treat is seriously also. And I know you know that! 😉 Just clarifying it for everyone else. LOL Now, trolls…. Ohhhhh… I do SO love to mess with moronic trolls!!! Sadly… you don’t seem to get any here! 🙁 That’s no fun at all! We used to have some great fun at Loaded Mouth! LOL
And yes, old habits are hard to break. 🙂 I just try to ensure that the targets are well deserving! I much prefer surgical strikes to shotgun blasts. 😉 LOL
It is one of the reasons I am against this Admin’s penchant for wholesale torture! I did torture 101, and it is ONLY useful in certain rare and specific circumstances. The best way to get accurate and honest information, including all those bits of info that torture would miss, is to truly befriend them. Nobody is more useful than an *enemy* that wants to prove how helpful and useful he can be to his new friends. 🙂 One of the reasons (I was taught) why one would want to torture and destroy another physically & mentally is as a terror weapon against others. Only terrorists torture by definition. Even in Cambodia, where I wanted to do that to every Khmer Rouge bastard I saw, we never did. We won a few over (and even then I just wanted to rip their heads off) and they proved useful. But only because they understood the alternative. Nothing was black and white there. Nothing ever is anywhere.
hipparchia: You pretty much know what I know at this point! 🙂 It finishes in November, and she asked in her email if it was OK for her to contact me with follow up questions & for clarification, which I said was fine, of course. 🙂 I’ll let you know as we go along. 🙂
Cheers! 🙂
I know, it is a great failing I have as a blogger, not attracting any trolls.
Oh, I’ve had a few, some who rated reporting to “appropriate authorities” as being a “danger to themselves or others” as we used to say when we gave them a canvas cardigan with the extra special sleeves, but they don’t hang around.
It’s probably because I don’t have any special “loves” that can be attacked. I’m not tied to a candidate or politician, or an ideology. I just want things that work. I don’t much care what you call yourself if you have something that actually solves a problem.
We were taught in military interrogation school that torture was a waste of time and totally ineffectual for getting information. It was highly effective to getting people to tell lies, but truth wasn’t part of the package.
If you know what you are doing, you can learn as much from lies as the truth, but you have to speak and understand the subject’s language to be effective, which is why the job title for my secondary proficiency in the Air Force was linguist/interrogator. A little time and careful observation, and they really will tell you anything.
It is sometime difficult to deal with people who are earnest and serious. I often feel compelled to lighten up the exchange. After a while you begin to realize that much of what you assumed was “serious business” actually wasn’t. I have to watch that.
In all honesty Bryan, you do a good job here. I spend my time here because you and your regular commenter’s are decent, honest people, and you like to have fun at times. I know that’s simplistic, but in today’s World, a little simplicity is the best thing there is! Heck, I could be a totally pedantic a**hole in my comments, and sometimes come close… 😉 And sometimes I am very serious, and sometimes frivolous. I’d like to think that I can make you and others smile a bit sometimes, make you think at others… and probably annoy you at other times! LOL But whatever you think or believe, know that I wouldn’t *waste* my time here if I didn’t have any respect for you. I used to be a regular at NO QUARTER, but haven’t been there at all in almost a year since they went extreme and became a *lefty* version of the extreme right nutters. Same goes for many other blogs.
You blog about what’s important to you and what you care about. I understand and respect that, and I am sure the others do also. I even like the Friday Cat Blogging! 😉 (Not too sure about the license plate thing though! It must be a Florida thing.) 😀
I have learned a little about you and your history. And I like what I see. You blog about things you understand, things you believe in and things you want others to know and maybe get angry about! 🙂 That’s what a good blogger does. I have learned things here, and I really had given up on the whole US situation. I just couldn’t be bothered, I figured everyone just deserved whatever hell they chose. But I’ve changed that opinion somewhat now. But you showed me that there are still some decent people who are trying to to what little can be done to educate people and possibly make things a bit better. 🙂 That’s a lot more than many there are doing. Given your background, I think I can safely say that you have done your bit for the USA!
Can’t ask for more than that. 🙂
I know you are angry and frustrated, I was the same here with Howard. It was harder for us, because we had to contend with Howard AND Bush! 😀 Now that Howard is gone, we have to keep Rudd honest! And we damned well will!
I don’t have the answers for the USA. I don’t know that anyone does. Short of a true Revolution, I honestly don’t see how anything will really improve I am sad to say.
But, you never know! It just may be that whoever wins will gave you the chance you need to begin waking up the sleepers and begin to fix things. 😉 There is always hope! 🙂
FWIW, that’s my humble opinion in a nutshell. 🙂
Cheers m8.
Well, after two years and 103 entries, today’s is the last plate until whatever may have been passed this year shows up. That isn’t all of the variations of Florida license plates, just the ones you can buy. There are special plates for people who have been awarded certain medals, and plates for government entities, but those are free plates that require specific documentation. It was a nice Sunday filler for people who stopped by, and a demonstration of how odd things can get down here.
I use this place for a form of therapy, since it is too expensive to head out and “punch paper”, i.e. shoot at targets. When I was hand-loading it was a good way to burn off the aggravation of life, but ammo is too dear, and it is a long drive with expensive fuel to go to the only truly safe range. There is an indoor range a couple of blocks away, but the guy who owns it is a bit strange, and I don’t trust him with weapons. Some people get careless when they deal with weapons too often, and he is one – passing a weapon with a closed breech, not aware of where the barrel is pointing – it’s too easy to have an accident.
I’m stuck working on a computer, waiting for clients to respond to changes, so blogging is what I do to fill in the blank spaces.
The hurricane season is starting, and that’s one of my obsessions. There is also the Iditarod.
I’m also aware of the world, and realize it is important. It’s amazing how little attention Americans pay to the rest of the world, and how little traveled they are as a group. They don’t understand what their government has been up to, and why others may not like the US all that much. I don’t know how they can expect to have global pretensions with a parochial mindset, but that sums up the US government for all too long.
hurricanes and the iditarod… not quite bipolar.